Shotgun Soliloquy

"You know... in retrospect-" a bullet blew through the side of the crate and took the side of Caleb's head off.  He slumped and fell over.

Ray and Peter Bailey's crew were in a spot of bother.  They'd let the wrong group join them.  And when the Bailey's decided to go their own way with two of that particular group's members, well... negotiations had gone badly.

The Kid wasn't worried.  The Kid was never worried.  Michael was afraid, but in control.  Emcee was rock steady as always.  Kate was terrified.  Caleb... well... Caleb was dead.  The Bailey's... you could never quite tell.  They had odd senses of humor.  The Kid put his pistol against Caleb's head and pulled the trigger.  Only Kate winced.

"So, yeah," Pete continued, "In retrospect, maybe joining a group of artists who collect spiders.... not your best idea."

"Shut up," Ray said, popping up to fire off two rounds from his sawed-off shotgun.  He dropped back down in a hail of bullets, almost losing his black cowboy hat.  He tossed the shotgun to the Kid, who caught it one handed and with a deft flick of his wrist opened it.  He already had the two shells ready.  The Kid had the dexterity of a professional magician. He reloaded magazines the way a blackjack dealer dealt cards.  The shotgun sailed back to Ray fully loaded.

"So like, Caleb's face and stuff-"

"Jesus, Pete!" Kate said, horrified.  Michael was shielding her with his body.  The warehouse crates were either hard or soft cover, depending on what happened to be inside them.  The provided concealment from the bullets, certainly.  Cover, maybe.

"Pete, I know," Ray said, spider-crawling a few feet down the aisle.  Pete blind-fired a few revolver bullets to draw fire, then Ray popped up.  The one he thought was named Walter was peppered with two barrels of buckshot.  He went down, but it was unlikely he was badly wounded at that distance.  Not with a shotgun.  A few more rifle bullets came dangerously close.  Malloy's group were good shots.  The sawed-off went back to the Kid.

"Do you though?"  Pete said, blind firing the last few rounds then tossing the pistol to the Kid just as the reloaded sawed off shotgun sailed back into Ray's hands.  "Cause this is your penis' fault.  Everybody, give Ray's penis a stern talking to."

"Shut up, Pete," Ray groaned.

"Kate baby, you gotta pull it together," Michael said, cradling her in his arms.  She was in shock.  "Nobody can shoot the AR like you baby.  We've just got one clip-"

"Magazine," the Kid corrected, speed-loading the revolver from his aluminum suitcase of ammunition and tossing it back to Pete.  They'd only been able to grab one case of amunition when things went sour.  Luckily, it was a big case. They had enough shotgun shells and pistol ammunition to fight a small army.  But all the long-gun ammunition, and all the long guns save for Kate's AR-15 were with Malloy.   The store was a city block long.

They were sitting ducks.  The Kid hated guns, even though he'd been a police detective.  He rarely fired them when he didn't have to.  Pete's hyperactivity kept him from having any sort of aim whatsoever.  Emcee was too small to comfortably handle the rifle.  Michael and Ray were competent, but not one single magazine of ammunition competent.  With Caleb dead, it was six on six, but all the long guns save for one were at the wrong end of the warehouse.

"'Ray' I says, do you remember when I 'says'ed that?" Pete said crawling to the end if the aisle and firing a few rounds over a five foot high stack of boxes of toaster ovens.  "'I says 'Ray, this bitch looks crazy.  This bitches friends look crazy.'"

"Easy," Michael said.  He'd been with the Malloy group at first.  But he and Kate had grown closer to the Bailey's group as they traveled and wanted to continue on with them.  Molly didn't like that.

"Present company excluded," Pete said, tossing the empty revolver back to the Kid.  The toaster ovens blew inward with the force of several rifle rounds and Pete just barely avoided the bullets and the plastic and metal shrapnel.  "'And also the bitch travels with an aquarium full of spiders'  And Ray, he says 'Pete, I've got a good feeling about this woman.'"

"I did not say that," Ray said, throwing a box of silverware as hard as he could through the aisles to the right of the group.  It hit the ground, the box breaking apart; the noise was sudden and confusing.  The bullets chased it.  Ray popped back up and only saw Walter again.  He was standing again, firing his rifle towards the noise, his body covered in tiny blood stains.  Ray shrugged and shot him again.  Walter fell a second time.

"You so did," Pete said, duck-walking to the Kid, pulling an automatic out of one of his coat pockets.  It was loaded and chambered, of course.  The Kid was a professional.  "And so I says 'Ray, I would enjoy having sexual intercourse with her as much as anyone.'"

"You said fucking," Emcee said, doing her best to get a crude wick made from a sweat sock into a bottle of store brand vodka.  She lit the liquor soaked sock.  It took a few moments to start burning.

"I'd throw that," the Kid said casually, laying out handguns.

"Baby, you gotta pull it together," Michael said, kissing Kate on her forehead.

"Two more seconds," Emcee said.

"You're playing with-" the Kid said.

"'But maybe this once,' I says 'You could not fuck this one person'"

"Fire, yes, I know. I know what fire is.  And amen to the fucking.  Ray, your dick has been pretty much the bane of our existence for a while now."  She watched the wick burn closer to the neck of the bottle, thick smoke rising from the torch in her hand.

"Throw it, I'm warning you," the Kid said.  He was serious, but unafraid.  The Kid never lost his cool.

"Nothing bad is going to-"  A rifle bullet burst through a stack stand-mixers and blew off the top of Michael's head.  They all stood for several seconds, the torch burning in Emcee's hand.

"You wanna finish that sentence?" Pete said.  Kate screamed.  Emcee took advantage of the distraction and threw the bottle as hard as she could through a gap in the aisles.  She'd spent years playing volleyball.  She could overhand throw further than most.  There was the sound of glass breaking, then nothing but rifle shots.

"Well...  shit," Emcee said, picking up one of the carefully laid out pistols.  There was a sudden whoosh and a a scream.  "There we go," Emcee said, checking the chamber on her weapon of choice.

"Waste of time to check," the Kid said dryly.  He loaded clips without even looking at them.  He read the size of the bullets like a blind man reads brail.  Kate had stopped screaming.  She was looking at Michael.

"Stupid not to," Emcee said.  A flaming, bleeding man stumbled past the aisle.  Walter again.  Ray laughed despite himself.  The poor unlucky bastard.  Pete gunned him down mercifully.  The odds were even again.

"You sure we can't talk about this like adults?" Ray yelled.

"You're not taking my Michael away!" Malloy shouted back.

"It's cool then," Pete shouted.  "Cause Michael is d-" Ray couldn't get his hand to Pete's mouth fast enough; there was no time.  He kicked his brother in the balls.  Pete doubled over.

"He's our hostage now," Ray shouted.  "One more bullet comes this way and I put one in his skull."  The bullets stopped.

"You're a fucker," Pete said, doubled over.

"About time someone did that," Emcee said.  She smirked and put her fist out.  "Bump it."  Ray did so.

"I hate all of you," Pete said, taking the time on the ground to choose two more pistols.

"Send out Michael... and Kate," there was a sinister edge to the second part that even gave the Kid a little shiver.

"How about-" Ray started.  Kate stood.  She picked up the rifle.

"We're coming out.  We're unarmed," she said with the voice of a woman terrified.  Her face told a different story.  The Kid read her like a book.

"Emcee, get Michael's coat off," the Kid said, standing and dropping his trench coat.  It clattered when it landed, full of guns.  Emcee winced, but stripped the red goose-down winter coat off of Michael's body.  The color covered the blood quite nicely.

"You have ten more seconds," Malloy shouted.  The Kid checked his vest, and slipped on the coat.  He took Ray's hat.

"This won't work," Ray said.  But he knew it would. The two men were the same build.

"It doesn't have to," Kate said  with quiet finality.  "This is me and Michael's fault."  She knelt and touched Michael's chest.  Pete offered the Kid a gun, but he refused.  The Kid pulled the hat down low over his face.  Pete got moving.  Ray worked the odds.  At a distance... just maybe.

"Malloy last," the Kid said.  His voice was cool as always.  "She won't shoot me."

Kate held the gun behind her, walking behind the Kid.  They stepped out.  Malloy was there.  Phillip.  Jack.  Frank. It took her a fraction of a second, but she found Wade on the second story with a scoped rifle.  They were all armed.  She didn't care anymore.  She took a step to the side and fired two rounds into Wade's chest.   All but Malloy fired back wildly.

"Stop! You'll hit Michael," she shouted.  They paused, a moment of confusion.

"That's not-" Frank said before Kate turned the top of his head into a fountain of gore.  She trained on Phillip. The Kid walked forwards slowly, hands in the air.  One of Phillips bullets hit him squarely in the chest and he fell to his knees.  Kate knelt behind him and shot Jack.

"You bastard!" Malloy screamed, turning her gun on Philip.  She emptied her weapon into him.

"Michael was already dead, and you shot him," Pete whispered into Malloy's ear quietly, pressing his pistol beneath her chin,  He'd flanked her during the distraction.  "I just wanted that to be the second to the last thing to go through your mind."

Pete pulled the trigger.  Kate sat quietly behind the Kid, holding the rifle.  Emcee ran to the Kid, shaking him.

"That is really quite painful," the Kid said, unzipping his jacket.  The bullet had made it through the Kevlar, but only just.  He felt it in the muscle of his ribs.

"You did good, kiddo," the Kid said to Kate.  He pushed to his feet and patted her on the shoulder.  The gun fell out of her hands. Two bullet holes poured bright arterial blood in a pool at her feet.  Her eyes were closed.

The Kid sighed.